Packers Excitement Meter Week 4: Defense Says Hello

Green Bay Packers are still looking for the special sauce. It’s not there yet for this team. They should have blown out the Buffalo Bills, and Aaron Rodgers shouldn’t have played in the fourth quarter. Instead, the game was 22-0. Defense played at a championship level, but the offense looks like they were still stuck in neutral. This drew the ire of Rodgers and for good reason. This offense isn’t going to win many games. The defense showed they can keep Green Bay in games, but they’re going to need more from the offense to compete in a tough NFC.

Category Five Excited: Jaire Alexander – How can you not be excited about what you saw from Jaire today? He sat the last part of the game with a groin injury, but it didn’t appear to be too serious considering he celebrated with Josh Jackson in the fourth quarter. Alexander made a big play and got his first interception. He played a role in shutting down Bills’ offense. I love that Alexander is not afraid to mix it up. He got into with Kelvin Benjamin and Josh Allen in the first half. We need more shit talkers on the Packers. Jaire is another one.

Category Four Excited: Blake Martinez – Sure, he had a dumb play early on in the first half, but Blake had himself a day in the middle. Martinez finished with nine tackles, a half sack, hit the quarterback twice and two of his nine tackles went for losses. Through the first four games of the season, Martinez stands out to me. He’s been better in pass coverage and still doing his thing around the football. He’s playing a very solid 3-4 middle linebacker.

Category Three Excited: Kyler Fackrell – I must be drunk but reading that Fackrell had three sacks in an actual NFL game is fucking amazing. Fackrell played really well in the second half. I’m not sure we’ve seen a better version of him. Hopefully, it’s a sign of things to come, but I’m not betting the farm on that actually happening for the guy who pained Packers fans for the last three years. If Fackrell actually becomes a pass-rusher, Mike Pettine should be a coach for life.

Category Two Excited: Aaron Jones – Usually, this section is for guys who struggled and it’s not today because Jones deserves some love for his performance. He had 11 carries for 65 yards with a touchdown. Jones needs to carry the ball more. He’s the lead running back of this team. Mike McCarthy needs to understand this immediately. Jones deserves more carries, and if the Packers do not give him those, they deserve to be a mediocre team.

Category One Excited: Mike McCarthy – I’m pretty much done with Mac as the head football coach. The offense is one that we saw teams in 2011 see success with rather than 2018. Rodgers’ post-game comments are going to draw eyebrows, but it seems he watched the Rams on Thursday night too. It’s a different brand of football. Rodgers knows he can do those things that Jared Goff, Patrick Mahomes and others are doing in 2018. He needs his coach to get with the fucking program. McCarthy needs to realize that things have changed and Green Bay has the talent to be a beastly offense.

Next up: Green Bay heads to Detroit for a matchup with the Lions. Rodgers did not play versus Detroit last season. The young corners will be tested versus the three-headed monster of Kenny Golladay, Marvin Jones Jr and Golden Tate. It should be fun to watch Alexander and company go up against those dudes. Kevin King coming back would be much appreciated though.